Check out our incredibly talented line up of amazing Honor Choir conductors for the Providence 2024 Eastern Region Conference!
Liana Salinas is a music educator and entrepreneur based in Miami, Florida. Ms. Salinas is passionate about leading people–especially young people–to find their purposes and use their voices confidently! She believes in the power of music to inspire change and in the practice of choral singing to unite.
Ms. Salinas proudly serves as the Artistic Director for the Miami Children’s Chorus, an organization near and dear to her heart. She has been a part of the MCC family for 24 years. She began her journey with the chorus at eight years old and simply never left. She served as the organization’s Assistant Music Director from 2013, and became one of the organization’s leaders in 2019. Her vision is to modernize the choral experience by infusing it with contemporary music styles and skills from jazz to song-writing.
Liana is also the CEO & Founder of My Music Music, a company that matches students with teachers for private lessons, group classes, masterclasses, and live music events in Miami, New York, and online all over the world. Through My Music Match, Liana seeks to provide innovative, accessible, and customized musical experiences inspired by our ever evolving world.
Dr. Felicia Barber is the Associate Professor, Adjunct, of Choral Conducting at Yale University and conductor of the Camerata. In addition to teaching graduate-level choral conductors and aspiring undergraduate conductors, Dr. Barber is developing a new initiative designed to prepare Yale students to work with young musicians on choral music in school and church settings.
Previous to her appointment at Yale, Dr. Barber served as Associate Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at Westfield State University in Westfield, MA, where she conducted the University Chorus, Chamber Chorale, and Gospel Choir; as well as taught courses in conducting and choral methods for nine years. In addition to her position at Westfield, Dr. Barber also served as Choral Lecturer for the summer master’s program at Gordon College for five years. There she taught courses in Choral Conducting and Choral Music Education for the MME degree.
Dr. Barber, whose research interests include effective teaching strategies, fostering classroom diversity and incorporating equity and justice initiatives in choral curricula, and the linguistic performance practice of African American spirituals, has contributed to such periodicals as the American Choral Directors Association’s Choral Journal and is the author of A New Perspective for the Use of Dialect in African American Spirituals: History, Context, and Linguistics (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021).
An active member of American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), she has presented her research at state, divisional, and national conferences. Dr. Barber has also served the organization on the National Diversity Committee, the Eastern Division 2020 Conference committee, and is the current President of the Massachusetts ACDA board. In addition, she is regularly engaged as a guest conductor for youth and community festivals around the country; including several All-State ensembles including Vermont, Oklahoma, California, as well as upcoming festivals in Louisiana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island.
Dr. Barber earned a BM in Vocal Performance from Oral Roberts University, in Tulsa, OK, a MM in Choral Music Education from Mansfield University, in Mansfield, PA, and a Ph.D. in Music Education and Choral Conducting from The Florida State University.
Sophia Papoulis is a conductor and creative director for the Foundation for Small Voices, an organization dedicated, through music, to crossing cultural, generational, and ideological boundaries to raise awareness and funds for national and international music and mentoring programs for children. An adjudicator, lecturer, and clinician, she gives choral, collegiate, and teacher-education workshops and guest-conducts regional and all-state choruses nationally and internationally.
Sophia has served as a conductor for the award-winning Young People’s Chorus of New York City, conducting not only for its core after-school program, but also within many New York City public schools across the boroughs. She has conducted at a number of notable venues throughout New York City, including Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater, the 92nd Street Y, Merkin Concert Hall at Kaufman Center, and Symphony Space. She has prepared choruses for national radio and television appearances, recording sessions, collaborative performances with such ensembles as the Kronos Quartet and the Stephen Petronio Company, and for performances not only in New York City, but also in major venues throughout North America, Asia, Europe, and South America. She has conducted professional, university, youth, and community choirs, and maintains an active voice studio.
Sophia is also active as a studio and live-event producer. She is a magna cum laude graduate of the Ithaca College School of Music where she is a member of the Choral Music Experience artistic faculty.
Alysia Lee receives national recognition for advancing access, equity, and decolonization with leaders, organizations, and communities. Her methods center on anti-racism, creativity, and justice.
Lee is a Kennedy Center Citizen Artist and the Founder and Artistic Director of Sister Cities Girlchoir (SCG), the El Sistema-inspired, girl empowerment choral academy in Philadelphia, Camden, and Baltimore in its eleventh season. She frequents as a guest conductor, most recently with the Mendelssohn Chorus, Bent But Not Broken Festival, and Boston Children’s Chorus.
Her piece ‘Say Her Name’ is published by Hal Leonard. She has recent composition commissions from Baltimore Choral Arts, Portland Lesbian Choir, and ComMission Possible. Alysia is the series editor of Hal Leonard’s Exigence for Young Voices, the new choral series uplifting Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian composers for young ensembles.
She is a board member of Chorus America, co-chair of Arts Education Partnership’s Racial Equity Working Group, and an Advisor for ArtsEdSEL. Recent speaking/facilitation engagements include the U.S. Department of Education, The Kennedy Center, Save the Music, Carnegie Hall, and many universities/colleges, school districts, and national and state professional associations. She Lee is formerly the education program supervisor for Fine Arts Education for the Maryland State Department of Education across five arts disciplines: music, dance, visual art, theatre, and media arts.